Why reverberation affects different individuals differently

Abstract

Any self-respecting architectural acoustician understands that good reflected sound enhances all sorts of important sound attributes. He or she undoubtedly also understands that reflected energy distorts the fine spectrotemporal structure of sound reaching a listener's ears. But what are the perceptual consequences of such minor acoustic distortions of sound detail, and what is the significance of this distortion when designing listening spaces? In psychophysics, recent experiments show that fine spectrotemporal structure is very important for understanding the content of complex, natural sounds, like speech, especially in the presence of background noise or competing sound. This talk will review why spectrotemporal structure is so important for verbal communication in everyday settings. Building from behavioral and physiological measures, this review will explore why even modest amounts of reverberant energy can dramatically impair the ability to communicate for some individuals, even when it causes no such ill effects in others. Understanding such effects is critical when designing listening spaces in which verbal communication is a key activity, like in a classroom.